Photography: Using Umbrellas as Modifiers

Video Transcript

"In this segment I'm going to talk about lighting with umbrellas. The first part is I just want to show a standard umbrella balancing into someone. As you can see, the light is pretty soft. It actually, it creates a nice soft, even light around the face, with nice gradation from one side to the other. If I wanted to even it out I could throw another soft box on the other side, or even a white card in there. This is actually a relatively large umbrella, so the light is a little bit softer. As you can see, there's hardly any shadow on the background, and that's actually that just produces a nice, even natural looking light. As you can see there's a nice round specular; a nice round reflection of the light in her eye, which is also something that you catch light; that you can see. When you're adjusting your umbrella, if your umbrella is too far away from your reflector, and is spilling too much, then you're actually losing light, and it becomes less efficient. If you can bring it in just a little bit so the edges are just beginning to get dark; just barely getting dark, then that's probably about the most efficient spot that you're going to be on your umbrella. It doesn't really the size of the umbrella makes the most difference in terms of the way your umbrella is going to look. You do get some changes when you pull it in, but basically what you're doing is you're making it like a smaller umbrella. Now let me just show you that really quick. You can see it changes the light a little bit, but not a whole lot. It just becomes less efficient really. If you want to change the way the light looks with an umbrella; you want to go with a smaller one, or just change the size of it, bigger umbrellas are usually a little bit softer, and tend to look better. Smaller umbrellas tend to create a little bit harsher light. As you can see from this one the light the shadow is just a little bit more defined around the nose, and also on the background. The larger the umbrella, usually it leads to softer light. Another common technique to do is to use a shoot through umbrella like this, and as you can see, that softens a light a lot, but not quite as much as balancing the umbrella. But it has its own unique look. As you can see, the shadow's not very well defined behind her. There's a little bit, it's probably a little bit harsher; the shadow on the nose, than it is with the large umbrella. This also spills light everywhere. You're getting just as much light spilling behind me; as I am forward, so that's one of the things that you want to consider when you're doing this. In this segment, we'll talk about the kind of like the cross umbrellas; these are the ones that are basically kind of like a cross between an umbrella and a soft box. This is the Photex softliter. These are pretty popular. Basically, it's an umbrella with a diffuser on the front that you kind of wrap around your reflector. These are actually nice to have on location. They act pretty similar to a soft box. As you can see, the light's pretty is very nicely diffused. The shadows aren't that harsh. It's got good contrast, but the only problem with these is they spill light pretty much everywhere. They're a little less directional. They're pretty good for portraits; maybe small groups, but not so good for a large group. They tend to diffuse the light too much for a group shot."